Is The Lord of the Rings a White Fantasy?

The Super Bowl has become an unofficial holiday in the United States, and beyond. People gather together at the homes of friends and family or bars and pubs to partake in a raiment of chips, dips, burgers and excessive amounts of alcohol or soda pop while cheering on their favorite football team as they compete for the title of champion for that year. As for myself, I’ve never been entirely interested in watching sports. I root for my Utah Jazz basketball team whenever they make it into the playoffs, but I still don’t like to watch the games mainly because they give me crazy amounts of anxiety, which I can’t entirely explain, but have always felt that it derives from the double finals defeat of the Jazz when I was a kid in the 90’s.

        

    At this point, you must be thinking, what does any of this have to do with Lord of the Rings? Well, bare with me, I’m getting there.

    Though I don’t care much for watching the game, I do enjoy the creative use of advertisements during the commercial breaks in which companies pay millions of dollars for seconds of air time to push their wares via memorable ads chock full of celebrities, CGI, and comedic sketches. This year, while watching a compilation of super bowl commercials on Youtube, one particular commercial caught my eye; a trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Now this was more my realm of interest! Being a die hard Tolkienite, and fan of everything Middle-Earth, it is safe to say that I am extremely invested in where this new series from Amazon is taking the beloved stories I have immersed myself into since my teenage years.

        The teaser trailer seems to be spanning a large swath of the histories of the Silmarillion, which is like the Old Testament of Middle-Earth. It begins with the creation of the world, the birth of elves, men and dwarves, their wars with the traitor demi-god, Melkor, later known as Morgoth, the rise of Sauron, the fall of Numenor, and the eventual defeat of the Dark Lord at the hands of Isildur. The title of the show, The Rings of Power, seems to suggest that the majority of the story will be focused during the second age, when Sauron forges the nineteen rings given to the free peoples of Middle-Earth, and creates the one ring to bind them and rule them all. However, many moments in this teaser seem to allude that the story will be making many trips further into the ancient lore of the Silmarillion, namely the exodus of the Noldor elves from Valinor, and the battles with Morgoth. While there was little to no suggestion to the story of the rings of power, except at the very beginning that possibly shows a glimpse of the isle of Numenor, which plays a key role in the defeat of Sauron. 

Though I am extremely excited about this show, I am also anxious that this may fall flat on it’s head. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was an in depth story with memorable dialog, songs, poetry, and detailed descriptions of places and events throughout the books. The Silmarillion, on the other hand, was published posthumously, and was more of a distant overview with little dialogue. The film trilogy by Peter Jackson did a wonderful job of mixing much of the contents of the books into his cinematic vision. But whereas this series will have little to go off of in terms of story or character development, means it will be left to the series writers to fill in the gaps. So the question of whether it will be good or not really depends on them rather than Tolkien. I do, however, love the fact that there is more ethnic representation being displayed in this series. In the trailer, we have an elf and what I’m assuming is a dwarf portrayed by non-white actors. I am thrilled that we are seeing more diversity in Middle-Earth! One of my very few criticisms of the Lord of the Rings films was the lack of inclusivity of other ethnic groups. The only minority actors who were in the movies were exclusively bad guys, and were either covered in make-up or had masks on, such as Lawerance Makoare who is of Maori ancestry and portrayed the main orcs through the series as well as the ruler of the Nazgul, the Witch King of Angmar. And though I loved his work in the movies, I wish Mr. Makoare would have had a chance to show his real face, like how Andy Serkis, who portrayed Gollum/Smeagol, had a moment of face time at the beginning of The Return of the King.

        

    Racial representation is important to me as well as millions of others. However, I have found that there are many fans of the books and movies that are vehemently against the idea of adding inclusivity into this or future adaptations. Recently, I posted a comment on a Lord of the Rings fan page on social media stating my view on adding more representation to these stories. The backlash was palpable. Responses came in by the droves, the vast majority being highly negative to my view and delving into derogatory verbiage and blatant name-calling. I paid little to no attention to the most dim-witted responses, but the overall antagonism was disturbing. This made me question, is The Lord of the Rings a purely white fantasy? Though race is not technically stated in the books, Tolkien does speak of races that have “fair” and “dark” complections, and usually those of darker skin tones are generally allied with the villain, Sauron; such as the Haradrim, and Easterlings of Rhun. Also, most of the humans, elves, and dwarves north and west of Mordor are far more fleshed out in regards to culture and language, which are based primarily on Scandinavian, Welsh, and other European myths and cultures. Whether J.R.R. Tolkien may have had certain racial biases, I do not know. However, Tolkien does bring up that the Harfoot tribe of hobbits were “browner of skin”, and possibly that the Moriquendi elves who never made it to Valinor could be of darker skin tones as well. In the end, one important detail we need to keep in perspective is that the world of Middle-Earth is a fantasy story, and the races depicted in the books are never stated to be in direct relation or representation of any ethnic groups today. By stating that all the main races of Middle-Earth are white, or should only be portrayed by ethnically European actors is simply conjecture.

    One last thing to consider is that The Rings of Power, just as Peter Jackson’s theatrical trilogy, is an adaptation. They are not supposed to be an exact translation from book to film. They are another artist’s interpretation of a source material. This does not mean that the books are being rewritten, as so many purist fans believe, because the books are not being tampered with at all. Now if future publications of Tolkien’s original text were to be changed, then there would be a problem. But that is not what Amazon is doing. They are only making an adaptation for a modern, more diverse, audience. And there will always be haters for every adaptation, whether deserved or not. Many hardcore fans hated Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films because they did not perfectly reflect Tolkien’s story. Among those naysayers was the author’s son, Christopher Tolkien, who lambasted the movies in typical British fashion: “They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged fifteen to twenty five,” “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. . . The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”

        This time around, however, the controversy is focusing mostly on race, which, being of European ancestry and a professed Tolkienite myself, I find insulting and offensive. The best thing about these adaptations is that they are giving audiences representation they can relate with, and invites people to read the original books and immerses them into the beauty and complex world building that is The Lord of the Rings. I know that there is still a possibility that the show may not live up to the hype, but I sincerely hope that this new series will deliver the same level of epic storytelling that the films delivered twenty years ago.